


añorar

by anderfels



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Birthday Fluff, Blackwatch Era, Established Relationship, Hand Jobs, Implied Sexual Content, M/M, Praise Kink, Pre-Canon, Shotgunning, Smoking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-22
Updated: 2016-08-22
Packaged: 2018-08-10 09:51:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,649
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7840108
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anderfels/pseuds/anderfels
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“I didn’t forget,” Reyes says, and hands Jesse a box.</p>
            </blockquote>





	añorar

**Author's Note:**

> happy birthday, cee! I hope you have a lovely day, and that my gay blackwatch boys rambling maaaaybe makes you smile. just a little 

  The buildings are blue and pink and yellow in Dorado; stucco thumbprints clambering up the hillside like climbing ivy, clustered busy between sweeping white walls and pocketed forest as the city becomes the mountain, sprawling tall above the bay. Candlelight hangs in every window, a perpetual glow. Lanterns are strung like captured fireflies between the houses, bowed blinking from portico to white pediment, and flickering hazy on the cobblestones beneath, blurred in the calm water of the plaza fountain.

 

  It is peaceful, but not quiet, despite the evening hour, streets still humming with people and bright with colour, with music, singing beneath the lanternlight and dancing along paseo marítimo, shouting vendors, rowdy tourists, a barrel organ, lilting guitars. Ivory sand stretches from a foaming shoreline below, tethered fishing boats swaying in a sparkling sea, oilslick blue with the encroaching night. There are dancers on the beach, and in the widest streets, half-pirouettes and baskets of flowers, elotes in greasy fingers, the smell of sea salt and grilled corn.

 

  The hotel can hardly be called such, too small, too _rustic_ , embroidered cushions and bare adobe walls, but it is home for the night, nestled back into the hillside above the town’s church, and flanked on the bay side by a royal Poinciana tree, verdant leaves and raucous red-orange flowers in glorious bloom.

 

  It’s Jesse’s birthday.

 

  Dorado’s heartbeat hums. He rests his elbows on the windowsill, lets the ash from his cigarillo crumble over the ledge, counts the terracotta chimneys, the peals of bells from far beyond his modest room. It beats familiar, a childhood rhyme, and yet it wasn’t his name he used to check in, nor do his clothes fill the carry-on by the door, all carefully chosen, picked, _presented_ , wearing someone else’s identity for the duration of the mission.

 

  They’re his smokes, at least. The packet in his pocket is a comfort.

 

  Night finally rolls fully across the bay as Jesse smokes in the window; purple light turns midnight blue, shadows stretching across the narrow alleyways like ink through water, candles bobbing in the colonnades and floating in the fountain. The traders in the marketplace light their lanterns and sell chargrilled sweet potato, cinnamon churros with dulce de leche. Bells are ringing solemn from the church; the people wander, and flock to it, and La Virgen bows her alabaster head from the niches as they pass.

 

  The door clicks. Jesse straightens lazily from the windowsill, and latches the window shut behind him, smoke exhaled thick from his mouth. “Anything?” he asks, and stubs the cigarillo in the ashtray on the coffee table, glowing end crumbling to dust.

 

  Reyes is nigh indecipherable in the gloom, a mass of shadow until he flicks on an ancient table lamp on the console by the door, and the bulb stutters dimly behind a tasselled shade. He hardly looks himself, uncharacteristic in pressed slacks and pinstripe shirt, blazer jacket over one arm. A uniform, of sorts. The jacket is tossed on the nearest of the two beds, and Reyes undoes his top button and cuffs, shucking the outside world like layers of clothing, and with them the brief, the mission.

 

  “No,” he says, toes off his shoes – black, shined – and sits heavily on the threadbare couch, at once shutting his eyes, as though reminding himself of who he is. “Try again tomorrow.”

 

  Jesse sucks his bottom lip and sits beside him, rests his bare heels on the coffee table. The lamplight flickers every minute or so, bulb buzzing with age, yet moths begin to flutter against the window pane from outside, giddy with the pull of it, no matter how dim.

 

  They have new names, for the three days they are in Dorado, new identities, new bankcards and ID photos, another man’s life like a suit for each to fill. A businessman – for Reyes - wealthy enough to avoid attention and yet not extraordinary enough to remember in much detail, drawn by Dorado’s LumeriCo-brand spine, the glowing ziggurats higher on the mountain. Jesse plays an associate with a drowning love of whiskey and blackjack, Mexican American, voice a drawl from the southern states and brandishing just enough cultural concession to be loud, nosy, and have no one think anything of it.

 

  In the cramped hotel room, they are themselves. Blackwatch is far away from here.

 

  “We leave it much longer, we’ll miss the window,” Jesse says, and leans back into the ratty couch cushions, red tailored shirt an ugly contrast to emerald green chenille, bobbled and faded with time.

 

“I know,” Reyes says, and when Jesse looks at him, he still has his eyes closed, head leant to the side. His hair is neat and combed - as befits an international businessman and not Gabriel at all - yet rebellious curls still coil away from his hairline, corkscrew over his forehead like the fluted balusters of the plaza buildings outside.

 

  A sigh, and Jesse sinks, can still hear the bells above the church, the chirp of a roosting bird in the Poinciana tree, settling for the night. He stretches, and knocks an empty soda can from the coffee table with his toes. It skitters into the remains of Jesse’s street food lunch - several grease-stained boxes, a lump of foil, a cone of cardboard with chili powder collected in the bottom, too tight for licked fingers to reach. Reyes had left him to his own, and Jesse had thought to treat himself. Happy birthday to him.

 

  The clatter of the can seems to wake Reyes from wherever he had drifted.

 

  “Reminds me,” he says, and doesn’t elaborate, simply stands and retrieves his discarded blazer. He sits again, golden in the lamplight, and produces two cans from the inside pockets, moisture still condensed and cold on the sides.

 

  He passes one to Jesse, clunks them together, and takes one for himself. “Happy returns, and all that shit.”

 

  The cans are gold, and Jesse squints to read the Spanish label. He almost drops it with the force of the grin that splits his face, wide and bright in disbelief as he realises what he’s holding.

 

  “You’re kidding!” he says, and stares at Reyes, who smirks over the lip of his can. Jesse pulls the ring-pull, and the drink froths the colour of molasses. “Sugar cane cola! Oh my God, I ain’t had this in _years_.”

 

  He takes a sip, smacks his tongue with a theatrical _mmm_ sound, wrinkles his nose against the fizz. “Still tastes the same!” he says, and Reyes counts four jumps of his Adam’s apple before he swallows around the can. “God _damn_ , that’s good. Where’d you find it? I thought they didn’t make it no more.”

 

“Old guy in the market had some,” Reyes says, and shrugs like it’s nothing at all.

 

  There’s a world-weary fatigue in him, on a green couch next to Jesse, so far away from the word _Commander_ that it’s difficult to reconcile, the tired thirty-something licking cola from his lip the same man as a soldier wearing uniform, tactical Kevlar, barking at his recruits, shotgun barrel black with residue.

 

  He sits deep, dragging his shoulders down into the sofa cushions, eyelashes brushing heavy against his cheekbones like the moths outside the window, and he watches Jesse, gauging, measuring, eyes treacle-dark in the low light.

 

  Drink set on the coffee table, Reyes furls and unfurls his fingers, like he’s testing the weight of the air in his hands. Jesse, still grinning, lips sweet with sugar cane, knocks him with his elbow, and Reyes can’t help but stare for a second at the ease of Jesse’s expression, at the joy in every inch of him, from bare toes to scruffy hair. It was like he’d given him the world, hung the moon above the bay.

 

  “Thank you,” Jesse says, with such sincerity Reyes wonders how his voice doesn’t break. The kid had always been mouthy, right from the moment they’d first met. It strikes Reyes, that he is capable of such hushed candour, so used to boisterous laughter, truly terrible jokes, a presence loud and constant. “Thanks, man, I- I thought, maybe… With the mission, and all-”

 

  Reyes laughs, small, but Jesse considers it a victory. “You thought I forgot?”

 

“Well, it ain’t like we’re here on pleasure!” Jesse almost swells with the rush of it, the _he didn’t forget_ , gestures his hand at the air between them. “You got shit to think about and I got shit to think about, and I don’t even _know_ when your birthday is, so it ain’t like we got a…a reciprocal fuckin’ agreement thing goin’ on here. You know, like I give you a gift and then you feel like you gotta give me a gift, and so on and so on til we’re a hundred and can’t even remember-”

 

  “Jesse.”

  The use of his name stills him, plucks at him like he’s a guitar string. Reyes takes his can from him, sets it on the coffee table amidst the debris, fingers wet with the condensation. His shirts sleeves are loose around his wrists, collar open to bare his clavicle, and Jesse maps the trimmed line of his beard from earlobe to chin, meets Reyes’ eyes.

 

  He sighs, soft, seems resigned to something, and shifts to reach into his trouser pocket. “I didn’t forget,” Reyes says, and hands Jesse a box.

 

  About the size of a cigarette packet, made of some kind of paperboard and creased at the corners like it may well have been sat on at some point in its life, it’s not the most promising box Jesse’s ever been given. He tips his head, pulls his toes back to the edge of the coffee table to sit up a little straighter. Reyes isn’t looking at him, flexing his fingers again, palming the air by his side.

 

  “Shit Boss, you didn’t have to get me a gift. It’s not like it’s a special age or nothing. You don’t have to do this.”

 

“You want it or not?”

 

“Well I dunno what it is yet. Could be a box full of dog shi-”

 

“Open the damn box, McCree.”

 

  McCree opens the damn box.

 

  Inside is a bed of tissue paper, white and clouded as though handmade. It crinkles as Jesse unfolds it, fragile like crepe and wrapped around a small rectangular object, laid beneath the paper like a shroud. Jesse picks it up.

 

  It’s heavy for its size and must be solid silver, slightly dull with age, bevelled at the edges, thinner than a matchbox. Jesse lets it rest in his fingers, reverent, and finally realises what it is.

 

  A lighter. About the length of his thumb, and hinged near the top, it’s perhaps the most ornate little object Jesse has ever seen, let alone touched, engraved with silver scrollwork on one side, curling embossed into the surface to reveal gold underneath, like the shards of moonlight swaying reflected in the bay. Rising from the pattern are two solid silver revolvers, barrels facing each other from opposite corners, intricate cylinders highlighted in plated gold.

 

  Jesse runs the tip of his thumb over one of them. It’s minutely detailed, and he’s hesitant to touch, as though afraid to leave his thumbprint on something so exquisite, so sincerely beautiful. He turns, gapes at Reyes as though seeing him for the first time in years. The orange glow from the lamplight paints his profile in bronze and gold, as if he belongs on the wall of a gallery, not a twin room with no A/C and the smell of McCree’s cigar smoke heavy in the air.

 

  The moment seems too big for just the two of them, and one slightly sagging green sofa. Jesse looks back down at his hands, at the lighter, sees Reyes glance at him in his periphery. On its underside, the lighter is almost surprisingly simple compared to the patterned front, smooth silver top to bottom save for a tiny engraved ‘J’ in the centre of the lid. Jesse touches it, feels the grooves beneath his thumb, as if making sure it’s real.

 

  “It’s not often you’re lost for words,” Reyes says, quieter than before, with a tension in his shoulders as he watches Jesse turn the lighter in his hand, study every detail like he’s committing it to memory, lest it’s taken from him.

 

  Jesse looks at him again, and his eyes are wide and glassy, the light seeming to wobble like the lanterns reflected in the fountain. He opens his mouth, breathes.

 

  Jesse grabs him by the collar with both hands, the lighter tucked safely into one palm as he snatches Reyes’ lips, hauls himself into his lap in a arching, aching kiss. His empty hand dips beneath the neckline of Gabriel’s shirt, smoothes up over one bristled cheek and grasps into his hair, tethering him, anchoring him. Jesse tilts his head, shifts closer, breath shuddering through his nose as he licks into Gabriel’s mouth, relocks their lips, pulls at him with the edges of his teeth.

 

  Gabriel huffs a chuckle, chest rumbling, brings a hand up to thread into Jesse’s hair and ease him back just slightly to break the kiss, yet keep him close enough to feel him breathing, hot on his wet lips. Jesse kisses him again, closed mouth, and he tightens his fingers in his hair. “Thank you,” Jesse says, and it’s barely a whisper. The moisture shines in his eyes. He folds his palm fully around the silver lighter, brings his hand to his own chest, keeping it close, safe. “I dunno what to say.”

 

  A shrug, inadequate but it’s all he can think to do, and Reyes seems to relax, the tension of before sinking away, leaning into the sofa cushions, the cheery embroidery. He shifts under Jesse’s hips, balancing him better, and licks his lips of the taste of sugar cane, sweet and spicy and herbal. “Don’t have to say anything,” he says, and muses to himself that if it really is this easy to shut Jesse up, he’ll buy him gifts more often, birthday or not. He nods at Jesse’s enclosed hand. “Could light me up, if you’re feeling generous.”

 

  Jesse nuzzles their noses together before he pulls back, just nonchalant enough to offset the affection oozing between them. He fetches his cigarillos from his back pocket, the packet starting to crumple, and Reyes wraps his lips around the offered end as Jesse flicks the lid of his new lighter. Flame jumps beneath his thumb, and Reyes inhales, the burning end glowing hot.

 

  The cigar packet is set on the coffee table with the little box, the lighter placed gently beside it, engraved revolvers catching the light. Jesse leans against Gabriel’s chest, and inhales smoke as he exhales, pressing a kiss to the corner of his lips. “Thank you,” he says again, soft on the bristles of Gabriel’s beard.

 

  Gabriel smiles, offers Jesse the cigarillo, first two fingers brushing Jesse’s lips as he holds the smoke in his mouth, breathes out and sags, full body relaxing, hips heavy in Gabriel’s lap. They share the air; Jesse presses into his space even further, and they kiss again, lazy and swaying.

 

  There are questions, Jesse unused to staying silent just to enjoy another person, wanting to ask, to _know_ , where did you find it, how old is it, is the ‘J’ a coincidence, did you look for it specially for me, why me, why now? But Gabriel is wrapping his free hand around his waist, balancing him again in his lap, and his mouth is sweet and hot and prying, beard rough on Jesse’s chin and cheek, chest a solid weight to lean in to.

 

  Jesse tilts his head the other way and meets Gabriel’s tongue, unable to help the arching of his spine, the push of his hips. They’re themselves, for the night, before the mission retakes precedence and they leave their names behind closed doors, don strangers’ clothes. He hasn’t had many real birthdays, after Blackwatch found a skinny punk at barely 17, so many years ago. They are always somehow lost in the thrum and hurry, between ops; surveillance, interrogation, capture. The violent, the difficult, the atrocities they wish to forget. It’s just a night, and the hotel room has creaking in the walls and sheets board-stiff with starch, but Jesse will take it. Hold on to it.

 

  With their work, every birthday could be their last.

 

  Gabriel takes another long draw of the cigarillo, offers it to Jesse who exhales bitter smoke into his neck between kisses, letting it plume thick from his nose. The ashtray on the coffee table is just within reaching distance, Gabriel splaying his fingers over Jesse’s back as he gropes for it, and balances the lit cigar on the rim to free his other hand. He straightens as soon as he’s able, both hands now on Jesse’s hips, meeting his mouth again, slick, teeth teasing sharp. Jesse’s palms frame his face, thumbs over his cheekbones, but he’s arching, hollowing his back to writhe in Gabriel’s lap, and all at once it’s anything but chaste.

 

  It tastes like chewed cigar paper and sugar cane, and Jesse is wearing aftershave that sticks in Gabriel’s nose, dizzies his head, curls his toes. Jesse wants him, he _wants_ , just Gabriel without a false identity, on a ragged green couch in Mexico, wants him out of the clothes that don’t belong to him, strip the mission away, bare him, _thank him_. For the gift, for the acknowledgement. For the future he’d been given, as tumultuous as it is.

 

  Gabriel pulls his bottom lip with his teeth. Jesse groans into his mouth, a deep rumble, sways in place. The hand on Jesse’s hip crawls smoothly over his thigh, and Gabriel presses his fingers into the fly of his jeans, where the inseam creases over Jesse’s crotch. A shudder seems to creep through Jesse’s spine, his hips quaking in place like caught on a bowstring.

 

  “A year older,” Gabriel says, hums into the corner of Jesse’s mouth, dragging his lips through his stubble. “And you’ve still got the restraint of a teenager.”

 

  Jesse chuckles, and it’s breathier than he intends, glancing down at Gabriel’s fingers, prying past denim to unzip him, unbutton. “Can’t help it,” he mutters, Gabriel’s curls soft beneath his fingertips. He strokes the side of his neck with his thumb, and the loss of tightness over his crotch is enough to make him moan, curl his bare toes as Gabriel slips his hand over the length of Jesse’s cock, pulls cotton boxers dragging across the head.

 

  A whimper, Jesse swearing under the rattle of his breath, and he drops his head onto Gabriel’s shoulder, nose in his collar. He smells expensive, gorgeous, Jesse unable to help feeling lowly in comparison.

 

  Gabriel rolls the fabric beneath his thumb, pressed soft but catching on the damp tip of Jesse’s cock. He breathes heavy, a growling like far off thunder in his chest, watches the cotton darken, watches Jesse’s thighs tremble. “God _damn_ , cowboy,” he says, and nuzzles briefly sideways into the mane of Jesse’s hair. Jesse’s breath hitches. Gabriel pushes his underwear down to get a hold on him.

 

“God damn but you’re beautiful.”

 

  His breath comes out in a rush, and Jesse weakly laughs, Gabriel’s shirt rucked under his cheek. The voice is honey smooth in his ear, close enough that he can feel it warm and deep, and Jesse has to grasp a handful of Gabriel’s collar to keep himself grounded, elation welling in him like the tide.

 

  “Such a beautiful cock,” Gabriel says, letting Jesse wiggle his jeans down over his ass, tucking his underwear down with them. He’s hot in Gabriel’s palm, swelling with every heartbeat, every thrum, head dark as Gabriel pushes his foreskin back with his thumb, curls his fingers and starts to stroke. “You’re beautiful, Jesse.”

 

  He nuzzles him again, and smiles at the whimper from his shoulder. “Look at you.” Jesse fists his hand harder in his collar, shifts, and Gabriel can tell he’s looking down between them, has to breathe around the swell of satisfaction that brings him. “You’re so hard for me. Getting so hard for me, aren’t you?”

 

  There’s a noise something like affirmation, muffled in the fabric of his shirt. Jesse nods like he’s trying to reassure himself, face hidden, watching the slick shine of his cock head, the rustling sway of Gabriel’s hips beneath him. The room has fallen away. Nothing exists past their corner. Gabriel’s fingers on his cock. On his hip. Gabriel’s thighs, tense and flex, propping him up. Gabriel’s skin against his lips. Gabriel’s voice. _Gabriel._

 

Jesse starts to lean into every stroke, content to ride the rising wave. The fist on his cock is insistent, and Gabriel swaps his hands after a minute or two, flexing the ache from his wrist. He’s full and swollen, blushing petal-red from tip to the thatched curls at his base.

 

  “You want it faster?” he says, and Jesse can’t help whining on his exhale, cock starting to throb in Gabriel’s palm. “I love your cock, cowboy. So good for me; you’re dripping.”

 

  He is; oozing white, thick and translucent as it slips down his length, between Gabriel’s fingers. It lessens the friction to a soft slide, Gabriel’s wrist moving faster. He pauses every couple of moments, strokes slow and squeezing, twists at the head, and Jesse is whimpering into his shoulder, pulling at his shirt, hips rocking uselessly forward and back. “Gabriel,” he says, and it sounds like a prayer.

 

  “I want to see you come.” Gabriel twists again, strokes Jesse’s hip with his free hand. His wrist protests but he ignores it, concentrates on the fat length of Jesse’s cock, the panting breath, heaving shoulders. “I love to watch you come, you know that? God damn, you’re gorgeous, Jesse, you have no idea-”

 

  Jesse makes a noise a little like a laugh, bordering on delirious. He pulls Gabriel’s collar aside and sucks at his neck, sloppy, lips smacking. Desperate to keep his mouth busy. His back is arching. There’s a tight fluttering in his belly, a precipice being climbed, and he can’t think beyond the softness of Gabriel’s throat, the rough warmth of his palm, squeezing him, coaxing him.

 

  “You want to come?”

 

“Y-Yes,” Jesse says, gasping. “Please.”

 

“Such a good boy.” Gabriel feels his thighs clench, hears him mewl at the praise. “So polite. Such a big, beautiful boy.” A wrenched cry against his neck. “Come for me, Jesse.”

 

  It builds impossibly at once, Jesse’s mouth wide open, head thrown back, shoulders hitching with every whimpering breath. He jerks his hips and comes, groaning high-pitched when the pleasure finally tips, releases, and he’s spilling over Gabriel’s shirt in long spurts, fists clenched on the air.

 

  Gabriel’s talking to him through it, telling him how good he is, how beautiful, but there’s nothing in Jesse’s mind but the shaking desperate flood of feeling, the sharp curling in the concavity of his spine, his scrabbling toes, the heat of Gabriel’s hand.

 

  “There’s a good boy,” Gabriel says, gentle and low, too quiet in contrast to the noise of Jesse’s breathing, the echoes of his climax. He’s stroking Jesse’s back, wet cock tucked back into his boxers, and when Jesse finally manages to lift his head, Gabriel is licking cum from his own fingers, the remainder fast sinking into the cotton of his shirt.

 

  The cigarillo in the ashtray has burned to nothing. It smells of tobacco smoke and sweat, and Jesse’s tongue is heavy in his mouth as he lets his lips slide lazily into Gabriel’s, trying to convey some sense of _something_. Thank you, perhaps.

 

  Gabriel shifts, settles Jesse against his side, curled into him with his jeans still askew, toes tucked between Gabriel’s legs. He sits deep. There’s a bulge in the front of his tailored trousers, and Gabriel lets his legs hang open as if to alleviate the friction, if only for a moment.

 

  Jesse chuckles weakly at his collar, nuzzles his nose into Gabriel’s clavicle. He hums, soft and satisfied, and trails a finger along the pressed crease in Gabriel’s trousers, cuddles into him. A kiss is pressed to his head, and Jesse looks up to meet dark eyes.

 

  “Alright?” Gabriel asks.

 

“Mhm. Fan-fucking-tastic, if I’m bein’ honest.” Gabriel smiles, almost like he’s trying not to, watches the flickering lamp glint on the gold of the lighter, still safe on the table. Jesse lets his cheek rest on his chest again. His breathing slows to normal. “Best birthday I’ve had in years.”

 

“Better than that time in Baton Rouge?”

 

  Jesse blinks, and then snorts a laugh into Gabriel’s shirt. He barely remembers most of that particular weekend. Something to do with tequila. And a vibrator. “It’s up there with Baton Rouge.”

 

  There’s a rumble as Gabriel chuckles, and it sends the same sharpness creeping up Jesse’s spine as before, the same thrill as the cliff edge of coming. _Anticipation_. “Good,” Gabriel says, voice rolling impossibly lower. He exhales into Jesse’s hair, nuzzles him. “But I’m not done with you yet.”

 

*

 

  Later, when the night has blanketed Dorado, and the lanterns have gone out around the plaza, Jesse traces patterns in the dark hair on Gabriel’s chest, like the lighthouse spotlight swirling in the water of the bay, rippling in the salt breeze. He dozes, fatigue heavy, starch-stiff sheet tangled around naked and sated hips on a too-small bed, gentle fingers curled into the muscles of his shoulder, upper arm.

 

  Gabriel tucks Jesse’s head beneath his chin, keeps him close. There’s one of Jesse’s cigarillos between the fingers of his free hand, poised over the ashtray beside them on the mattress, and an ornate silver lighter lying on the bare skin of his chest. The metal glints with every inhale in what little light is left, the bulb in the tasselled table lamp long having burnt out.

 

  Jesse hums, sighs with weary contentment, and closes his hand around the lighter, pressed into Gabriel’s heart, the slight sheen of sweat on his skin still. His eyes flutter with the weight of sleep, of bone tiredness and a deep sweet ache in the pit of his spine, the backs of his thighs. “Gabriel?” he says, Spanish pronunciation. The word seems too loud. He feels Gabriel’s toes curl against the thin sheet.

 

“Hm?”

 

“When _is_ your birthday?”

 

  Gabriel’s laugh rolls, a distant storm, breath in Jesse’s hair. “We've known each other years. You know my damn Hogwarts house, but you don’t know when my birthday is?”

 

“Everyone knows what Hogwarts house you’re in, darlin’.”

 

“ _I_ didn’t.”

 

“ _Yeah_ , and that’s why we took the test.”

 

  Gabriel laughs again. He cradles Jesse’s shoulders in the crook of his arm, watching Jesse’s hand rise and fall with his chest. “It’s a good job you’re cute,” he says, soft, shuts his eyes.

 

“Please? I won’t tell nobody.”

 

  Jesse can’t see his smile in the dark, but knows it’s there, pressed into his hair.

 

  The end of the cigarillo glows beacon bright as Gabriel brings it to his mouth and draws, lets the taste of it fill his mouth, tingle in his lips. He exhales, slow and grey, thick as raw wool, and Jesse can’t help but breathe in the swirl, the storm clouds, Gabriel letting the ash crumble into the tray beside him. If he moves too much, the tray will tip, but he doesn’t find the energy in him to care.

 

  Jesse settles back into his side, resigned, presses a kiss to Gabriel’s collarbone. “Tell me the year, then. What year is it?” he says, whisper quiet now, lulling himself to contented sleep in the rhythm of Gabriel’s breathing, the warmth of their shared space.

 

“Every year,” Gabriel says, and Jesse’s bark of laughter is loud enough to startle the flock of birds, roosting in the Poinciana overlooking the bay.

**Author's Note:**

> A couple references I thought might be interesting:
> 
> \- Añorar, a verb meaning to miss, to yearn for, to long for.  
> \- McCree's lighter might look [something like this](http://i.ebayimg.com/00/s/NzAwWDQ2Ng==/z/I4IAAOSwu4BVwAj5/%24_12.JPG?rt=nc).  
> \- Cola made with raw sugar cane does exist, and is a half reference to [Mexican Coke](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mexican_Coke).  
> \- [Elote](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elote) \- corn on the cob, street food popular in Mexico.  
> \- And [Delonix regia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delonix_regia), an ornamental tree grown in many tropical and sub-tropic regions worldwide, and known in English as the royal Poinciana.


End file.
